Brady Clark? Banished to the Land of Wind and Ghosts.

Brady Clark is 35 years old and an eight year veteran. Basically, he has no excuse for making costly blunders. Your veteran bench guys are only there to play smart baseball. They are not expected to light the world on fire, but they are surely expected to know the game of baseball when they are in.

"I screwed it up," Clark said after the Mets ended up stranding three runners without scoring in that inning. "My instincts told me to go, and by the time I thought better of it, it was too late."

I get that people make mistakes. However, when you are in the position that a Brady Clark type player is in, you make the most of whatever small opportunities you get. Yesterday, he did not and made what seems like a game changing mistake. The Mets lost in many different ways yesterday so I am not pinning this all on him, but that was a pivotal spot where they had the Brewers on the ropes. In that position, he fakes breaking to home so he can draw a throw or takes a nice lead and breaks to home if Fielder goes to second.

It may be hard to concentrate at all times being this is a long season, but bench guys need to play smart ball to contribute because they are not always going to be able to do the things that more talented starters can do. Brady Clark failed miserably at that on Sunday. Double plays? They happen and you have to give some credit to the pitchers for executing. However, baserunning mistakes and hacking at first pitches while the pitcher is clearly laboring is inexcusable.

I can accept losing when you play the game smart. I can accept a starter getting roughed up every now and then when you play the game smart. This team did not play the game smart yesterday.

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Sugar will be on Letterman tonight.

In honor of Jackie Robinson, the Mets will be wearing 42 tomorrow.

Every Met will wear jersey No. 42 tomorrow against the Nationals in honor of Jackie Robinson. Tomorrow is the 61st anniversary of Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Cone will do fifty games for the YES Network and something about that feels so wrong. However, while we are on the topic of the YES Network, I just wanted to say they are a borefest. I jumped over the Yankee game on Friday  during commercials for the Mets game and holy crap was it terribly boring.

Boring stories, boring voices, boring play by play. Boring.

The infirmary report:

Reyes should be back Tuesday and Sanchez could be back later this week after pitching in back to back games.

More terrible rants...

"If Duaner Sanchez is activated tomorrow, I'll drive him to Shea rather than risk him taking a taxi."

Haha. Good one.

And the RANT OF THE WEEK!

"The Mets should have signed Carlos Santana instead. At least then they would get that eighth-inning song they're looking for."

Jackass.

Schneider feels the pain for his battery mates.

"It doesn't matter if I get four or five hits and have a couple of home runs," Schneider said. "It doesn't matter, if the team loses. Some people may not believe that, but it's true, because I'm back there battling with the pitchers, too. So when the pitchers have a little bit of a rough day, I do, too, because I'm back there working with them."

Overall, he and Church have looked great. Really good to have two solid all around players that can meaningfully contribute and represent upgrades in each of their respective positions from the 2007 squad. However, the Mets are neutralizing their upgrades by playing shitty ball. Not good.

Wow! LoDuca wants the Mets to lose? Why would a division rival want that?

Moises is coming back and is playing a rehab game in St. Lucie this weekend.

Also from the above link...

Fill-in Angel Pagan, who led off the past two games with Jose Reyes (strained hamstring) sidelined, lifted his average to .385 with a 2-for-4 performance Sunday against Milwaukee. Still, despite Pagan's success, Willie Randolph plans to return him to the No. 6 or 7 slot in the batting order once Reyes is healthy, rather than consider Pagan for Luis Castillo's No. 2 spot. Randolph predicted Pagan would be a reserve player when Alou is back.

Well, it looks like I was right. Not that Castillo did bad yesterday, he actually had some very good at-bats, but he is not a spark plug. Right now, this team needs a spark and it seems that Pagan has been delivering that whenever given the opportunity. Conclusion? I am no fan of Willie Randolph.

Greg Maddux says this is his last year and that is not good. I wish he could keep going, and going, and going... He is off to another great start and already has two wins. Seeing him hit 400 would just be flat out insane. At 349 wins that seems like a stretch, but you never know.

Jim Callis does a little Yu Darvish action.

"He has plus stuff, and plus command and control to go with plus makeup," one scout said. "If I had a big game, I would be comfortable with him on the mound. He's a No. 1 starter for me. Absolutely filthy last year, and he played most of the year at 20. We'll see what happens as the innings pile on his arm, but he would be 1-1 in the draft . . .

"We're not talking a 'blow them away with a fastball and knee-wobbling stuff' kind of guy. We're talking a kid with a projectable body who knows how to pitch and is still developing physically—and is really good right now. He still might end up with jaw-dropping stuff. He's still very young."

With Bannister continuing to defy all logic, I'm sure we'll see a new Banny Blog today so keep an eye out for that.